The Dictators

Their offensiveness is typified quite nicely by their name and the name of their album--anyone smart enough to fool around with such terminology ought to be decent enough not to. Their excuse is that their galumphing beat, their ripped-off hooks, and their burlesqued melodrama are funnier than ever, and I admit that after dozens of playings I like this almost as much as I did their first. But I liked their first instantly, which is the way dumb jokes should work, and anyway, no one has answered my big question: do they play their own instruments? (Grade: B)